One of America’s top beaches is only one of the reasons to hop a boat or paddle your kayak to this offshore state park, Caladesi Island.
The other is the fascinating Island Trail, an interpretive nature trail looping through a succession of habitats surrounding a former homestead site near Dunedin Pass.
The trail system also leads to the beachResources
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Overview
Location: Dunedin
Length: 3 mile loop
Trailhead: 28.031762, -82.819508
Fees: Paddlers and beach walkers $2, private boaters $6. Ferryboat passengers, $18 per person plus Honeymoon Island State Park entrance fee of $4-8 per vehicle
Restrooms: At the marina
Land manager: Florida State Parks
Phone: 727-469-5918
Open 8 AM to sunset. Camping is not permitted on the island, although boaters can reserve a slip and stay overnight on their boat in the marina.
Leashed dogs are permitted on the trail system but not on the beach. You cannot bring them over on the ferryboat, so only private boaters and kayakers can transport a dog here.
Directions
From Dunedin, drive north on US 19A to SR 589 (Causeway Blvd). Cross the causeway 2.8 miles to the Honeymoon Island State Park entrance. After you pay your entrance fee of $4 or $8, continue along the park road to the first left and park. Take the ferryboat from here.
Paddlers can launch from the causeway without having to enter Honeymoon Island State Park. See more options on how to get to Caladesi Island State Park
Hike
After a brief ferryboat ride winding through mangrove islands along Dunedin Sound, arrive at the Caladesi Island dock.
Behind the gift shop and cafe, the boardwalk leads into scattered cabbage palms.
Just before you reach a T intersection of boardwalks, look for the “Island Trail” sign.
Trail signTurn left, passing an old picnic area with restrooms. The trail meanders into the coastal scrub.
Stop at the trail guide box and grab a map. Along the sandy path, look for browsing gopher tortoises among the tiny, delicate wildflowers of the coastal scrub.
Hiking through the coastal palm hammockAfter 0.6 mile, meet the intersection with the Beach Trail. Continue straight ahead.
Enter a mature coastal pine flatwoods, a canopy of slash pine towering over cabbage palms and sand live oaks.
Among the pinesVeering right, enter a tangled forest where muscadine grapes and greenbrier smother the understory.
After crossing a bridge, the forest closes in. Ascend a small ridge to a bench overlooking a freshwater pond.
Freshwater pondMosquitofish shimmer in the shallows. Look for raccoon tracks along the muddy rim of the pond.
Slash pines dominate the forest as the trail climbs. Several pines show catface scars where visiting sailors tapped them for naval stores of turpentine and pine tar.
At a mile, reach a post with an arrow. Bear right and then turn left to join the Hammock Loop.
It follows the high ground into a cathedral of pines, one of Florida’s last stands of virgin slash pine.
Mixed palm-pine flatwoodsVeering left, reach the shimmering waters of Dunedin Pass. A short side trail leads to a bench overlooking the water.
The view is of the dunes and the sea beyond. The pass silted in long ago, connecting Caladesi Island with the remote north end of Clearwater Beach.
Dunedin PassCrossing a sand road under a power line, the trail slips into a coastal hammock. At 1.4 miles, a spring-fed pond is a surprise.
In the clearing beyond it is a double-trunked slash pine adjoined by a kiosk explaining the history of the island.
Henry Scharrer came to Florida from Switzerland in 1883 and homesteaded Hog Island for fifty years.
There is evidence of earlier settlements too, with a burial mound and shell implements found on this corner of the island.
A colorful stand of lupine on the island’s high groundThe trail climbs back into the pine flatwoods, crossing the sand road and its adjoining power line a second time at 1.6 miles.
The footpath narrows through a seasonally wet area before sealing the Hammock Loop.
Turn right at the “Nature Trail” sign, then make an immediate left onto the Beach Trail.
This trail is low and flooded in places, making for a sticky walk through the mucky spots.
Lowlying trailAt 2 miles, a sign points towards the marina via the Shortcut Trail. Turn left instead, crossing a bridge along a mangrove-lined canal and lagoon.
This is a great birding spot: we’ve seen roseate spoonbills in the shallows.
Leaving the mangroves the trail climbs over the dunes to arrive at the beach, snaking through the windswept sea oats.
Shortcut TrailWalk along the water’s edge to spy a stingray skimming past, or a horseshoe crab walking along the bottom, or dolphins in the surf.
After a half mile, there is a dune crossover boardwalk on the right. Skip this one and continue to the second one at 2.8 miles.
Beach walkTake the boardwalk back over the dunes to the bathhouse and turn right at the intersection, passing the start of the Island Trail again.
Retrace your steps back to the marina to complete this 3 mile hike.
Caladesi Island MarinaTrail Map
Explore More!
Learn more about Caladesi Island State Park
Caladesi Island State Park Protecting a windswept shoreline and a variety of habitats on a barrier island, Caladesi Island State Park is one of the gems of the Florida State Parks system.Slideshow
See our photos of Caladesi Island State Park
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